What is happening in Russian games market

Russian press this week

Another lazy week here – some games got released, tournament happened, somebody probably launched a new gaming website to copy-paste news from Kotaku. So let’s talk about it in details.

Let’s start with new games, shall we?

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls got glowing 93 from Russian press. The game is unofficially called here “Reaper of Wallets” because of its unusual pricing scheme: you either buy European version at 40 euros now or wait for Russian ghettoed edition two weeks later for 899 roubles. Rouble is particularly weak these days, so Russian gamers aren’t happy with 40 euros price tag and/or two weeks delay. Despite that you can buy unofficial keys online starting at 600 roubles. One of my friends bought one and claims it works like a charm for European game. I wonder, where these keys are coming from?

Internet phenomenon Goat Simulator got 88 and deserved a dedicated article on TJournal. TJ usually writes about Internet culture and politics, so this means Goat Simulator is a big news.

To my concern nobody played wonderful Age of Wonders 3 – it got 77 with only two reviews from minor sites so far. Not enough goats, I presume.

Also expect a lot (and I mean A LOT) of coverage from recent Wargaming.net finals in Warsaw – Instagram and Twitter were heavy as hell with pictures and tweets from Warsaw last week. For now there is only one article on Kanobu, everyone else is probably still jet-lagging. All you need to know is: Na’vi won, Virtus.pro took second place and Wargaming.net isn’t afraid to spend money on e-sports. As a big fan of Na’vi I’m quite happy with it.

Kanobu writes about Russian games for various consoles and while there isn’t much to read there, it’s still an entertaining article if only for games screenshots. Unfortunately they’ve missed a lot of games there – Planets Under Attack, Armageddon Riders, Mushroom Wars and so on.